Yammer CEO: Here's Why I Moved My Company To Silicon Valley

Yammer CEO David Sacks is glad he's in San
Francisco.Owen Thomas, Business
Insider

In July 2009, things were going pretty well for Yammer, then a
small enterprise-software startup based in Los Angeles. But
something was missing.

Yammer CEO David Sacks, who had moved to Los Angeles in part to
pursue a successful career as a movie producer, had a long talk
with one of his investors and advisors, Keith
Rabois. Both had worked together at PayPal.

"It was supposed to be a 10-minute catchup," Sacks told Business
Insider. "It ended up being an hour-and-a-half conversation."

Sacks cited the "brain trust" of startups in San Francisco's SoMa
district, where Yammer put down roots.

"We just started thinking bigger," Sacks recalled. "Right away we
stepped up our fundraising, stepped up our hiring. We just
realized there's no such thing as a highly successful small
startup."

With Yammer having sold to Microsoft
for $1.2 billion, and Sacks still in charge, it seems like the
right bet. The Los Angeles tech scene is
just starting to heat up, and there's no telling where Yammer
might have been had it stayed put while waiting for a thriving
startup community to form.

In December, Yammer will be moving again—this time, to San
Francisco's Mid-Market neighborhood, in the same building
as Twitter and
One Kings Lane, two startups which also moved from
SoMa.